Archives by Day

As WP's senior editor, I edit review and preview articles, attempt to keep up with the frantic pace of Rainier's news posts, and keep our reviewers on deadline, which is akin to herding cats. When I have a moment to myself and don't have my nose in a book, I like to play action/RPG, adventure and platforming games.

Advertising

Players begin their journey into darkness by choosing to play as any of seven different vampire clans. Each clan in the game offers a distinctive set of skills, traits and abilities including: supernatural speed, stealth, invisibility, mind control, inhuman strength, combat, and stamina, each of which will be further refined as players progress through the game. Players will earn and apply experience points to increase their powers and skills, allowing them to create their ultimate creature of the night, from stealthy hunter to seductive charmer to a feral, brutal killing machine.

This document details numerous fixes and changes to Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines in the 1.2 patch. The patch will not affect saved games from the retail version of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. It is strongly recommended that you disable any anti-virus software before installing.

Fixed problem where keys and keycards may disappear from player’s inventory.

Fixed problem where binding either Enter or Right Mouse Button to the Use key would cause the inventory window to immediately close after opening. These bindings are now no longer permitted.

Added “Inventory Full – Items Dropped” message when player receives items beyond the inventory limit and added inspection particles to the dropped items. This addresses the issue with cameras being lost in the “Model Citizen quest.

Fixed problem where a player would have both the vampire and warform models stuck together when both Fortitude and Protean (level 5) are activated.

Fixed crash to desktop when the player returns to the boat after rescuing Johansen from the Society of Leopold.

Fixed problem where the newspaper would report success in the “Model Citizen” quest even though the player had failed it.

Fixed problem where the player can log on to the Theater computer before receiving the “Tangled Web” quest from Mitnick.

Modified E dialog so that it is easier to receive the “Thinned Blood” quest.

Modified Regent dialog so that he now recognizes completion of the Gargoyle quest.

Modified Isaac dialog so that he now recognizes completion of the King’s Way and Gargoyle quests.

IMPORTANT NOTES

If you find that you are not accumulating experience points as you complete quests, this is because you have Auto-Level turned on and the game is automatically spending your experience points to improve your abilities and attributes. To disable Auto-Level, access the Character Sheet and click on the Auto-Level toggle button.

Once you acquire a new haven, your Santa Monica haven computer and mailbox will no longer function. Use the computer and mailbox of your new haven instead.

When you are playing a Nosferatu, your grotesque appearance prevents you from using the taxi that appears after you blow up the Sabbat warehouse. Nosferatu characters must travel between game hubs using the hub map found in the sewers.

IMPROVING GAME PERFORMANCE

Most performance problems reported to Activision Customer Support are due to computer systems not meeting the minimum system requirements or not having the latest video and sound card drivers installed.

If these are not the causes of any performance problems you are experiencing, we recommend that you try some or all of the following suggestions.

• Set your desktop to a resolution of 800x600, 32-bit True Color and play the game at that resolution.
• Shut down all background applications.
• Disable any anti-virus software you are running.

• Set the game’s Game Options to their minimum settings. In particular, disable Environmental Effects.

• This game requires a 1400MB swap file. If you are using Windows XP, 98, or ME, make sure that you have “Let Windows Manage My Virtual Memory” enabled, and if you are using Windows 2000, make sure that you have manually set your max swap file size to 1400MB. In addition, make that you actually have enough free space on your hard drive to facilitate the swap file (1400MB).